Flashbacks of Fancy
by liebedance
Summary: Hermione pays a visit to Draco's house late one night to confront him about something that shouldn't have happened. "I had a flashback of something that never existed, or that shouldn't have existed anyway." Read and Review?


[A/N: Written as a request for hp_wishes on Live Journal. Prompt: "I had flashbacks of something that never existed." While I've read several D/Hr fics, this is the first I've written

Disclaimer: I don't own and make no money]

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They were nothing more than whispers in her mind, wordless murmurs that made no sense.

They were wisps of mist in the black of the night, shapeless and meaningless.

They were remnants of repressed memories, memories too shameful to recall.

They woke her in the middle of the night, not quite nightmares but too strange and unsettling to be simple dreams. She'd open her eyes and push away her bushy brown hair plastered to her face with cold sweat, and as her vision adjusted to the darkness around her, in those brief moments between sleep and awake, she'd remember.

_She isn't able to sleep. After all of the adrenaline from the final battle and the constant stress from the previous eight months, the chance to go to sleep without worrying if she'd wake up is too easy. And, so, she has wanders through the crumbling castle and out to the disaster strewn grounds. _

_As the sun rises orange on the horizon and illuminates the rubble, the evidence of death and loss, Hermione feels the tears hot on her cheeks. Tears of relief that it is over, sadness for those she's lost, and anger that it had had to turn out this way. _

"_Granger?" A too familiar voice sounds from behind her._

"_What do you want, Malfoy?" she asks, not turning around. She'd left Gryffindor tower to be alone, to think. And now Malfoy is disrupting that. _

"_Shouldn't you be celebrating with your friends? Is it safe for you to be out here all alone?" He drawls, stepping closer to her. _

"_Shouldn't you be mourning the end of your sad, pathetic life and the downfall of your "Lord" with your mummy and daddy?" Hermione shoots back. _

"_They've taken father into custody," Malfoy says, and he stumbles slightly. "Mother is asleep. I'm allowed to go on a walk if I so please, Granger. Nobody can stop me." _

"_You're drunk," Hermione asserts, finally looking at the blonde boy. _

_He has bags under his eyes and his skin is a different pale than she's used to. He looks as though he's been ill. A dark bruise is forming on his cheek from where Ron punched him just hours ago. _

"_Is that a bad thing?" he asks. "It's not illegal. I'm of age. And I don't really fancy doing much remembering right now."_

"_It must be horrible that your Lord died," Hermione says, her tone laced with sarcasm and contempt. "I really feel for you, Malfoy."_

"_I don't care so much for the Dark Lord," Malfoy admits. "But if you think I'm happy about this, think again, mudblood. I had friends who died. Not only the "good" side suffers, you know."_

Hermione closed her eyes, trying to push the memories away, back into the abyss of things forgotten, where they belong. But, for once, they don't disappear. The flashes of that night come in full force.

_That first taste of firewhiskey on her lips, the scorch as it runs down her throat, burning away the pain._

How she regretted now having taken that first taste. Something about Malfoy's goading comments and less than friendly jibes had pushed her over the edge. She, too, had wanted to forget.

_His desperate lips on hers, her hands in his silky blonde hair. _

If that first sip had been her first mistake of the night, allowing herself to numb her mind and, thus, destroy her inhibition had been the greatest mistake.

_His pale hands making their way lower and lower as she breathed in and out quicker and quicker._

She had known it was wrong. But, for once, she hadn't cared. She was sick of always doing what right, what she _should_ do. She wanted to forget her responsibilities, push the memories – good and bad – of the past seven years out of her head. And, so, its complete and utter wrongness was the smallest glimmer of right.

It had been nothing like with Ron. There had been no awkwardness and, therefore, none of that same indescribable spark. It had been rough and carnal and driven by nothing but pure need and physical desire.

She had pushed it from her mind with more ease than she'd anticipated, probably due to the same substance that had allowed her to commit the deed in the first place. She had let herself forget, pretend it had never happened, and held the secret hidden away.

But there was no more avoiding it. The dreams and flashes – which had started as nothing more than brief images – had become more frequent. And, now, Hermione found herself unable to push them from her mind. They haunted her throughout the day and pierced into her dreams.

So, six months after the event, Hermione awoke shaking and remembering _exactly_ what had happened. Taking care to not disturb Ron who was snoring obliviously, she got dressed and Apparated to London.

She knew Draco's address. His time with the Death Eaters had put him on the Ministry's probation list and she'd seen his file more than enough times to remember the address. At first she'd been surprised that Draco lived in Muggle London, but it made sense. He had wanted to escape the looks of contempt sent his way by most of the Wizarding World.

And then Hermione was at Draco Malfoy's house.

It was a large city mansion built of white stone with a cast iron gate around it, but it in no way resembled the Malfoy Manor. For one, it was smaller and lacked the dark majestic air of the Malfoy house. It also seemed to lack any dark magic or resistance to intruders; even the gate was not locked. It was almost as though Draco was inviting people to come see him, trying to show that he wasn't his father.

Still, as Hermione pushed open the heavy gate she felt a certain dread. She remembered all too well the last time she'd been at a Malfoy residence.

"Bellatrix is dead," she whispered to herself as she walked up the path to the door, hands clenched in fists to stop their shaking. "Remember to breathe, Hermione. Breathe. Bellatrix is dead, Voldemort is gone, Lucius is in prison, and Malfoy won't hurt me... I think."

She rang the bell. There was no answer. It made sense, she supposed. It was the middle of the night.

She rang it again. And again. Hermione could hear the ringing from outside the house, loud in obnoxious, as she pressed the button over and over. He had to be home. She needed to talk to him, she couldn't wait any longer. If he wasn't home...

The door finally opened. Draco Malfoy stood, hair dishevelled and wearing only a pair of black pyjama pants. He stared at her with blank eyes, his face emotionless and unreadable.

Hermione closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The sight of him shirtless had brought a new wave of memories to her.

_His hard body pressing against her softer one as though the answers to all their trials was in this one touch_.

"Granger?" he demanded after a few minutes, breaking her from her thoughts. "What are you doing here?"

"We need to talk," she commanded, staring at him with fire in her eyes.

"What could _we_ possibly have to talk about?" Draco drawled, his nonchalance tone marred with sleepiness. "What could there possibly be for us to discuss at three in the morning, Granger?"

"You took advantage of me," she accused without preamble.

"What?" Draco suddenly stood up straighter and looked at Hermione with incredulity. "What are you _talking_ about?"

"May second," Hermione answered, her voice rising in pitch and volume, "after the battle, on the grounds. I was drunk and _you_ took advantage of me."

"And you're just mad about this now?" Draco asked in exasperation. "You're suddenly so furious about this now that, after _six months_, you can't possibly wait until a decent hour to come to my house and make accusations?"

"I only just remembered," Hermione shot back. "And what does it matter when it is. It doesn't change the fact that-"

"I did not take advantage of you," Draco interrupted her. "I was drunk, you were drunk – on my alcohol nonetheless – and, trust me, you were _more_ than willing a participant."

"You got me drunk," Hermione insisted. She didn't want to believe – couldn't believe – that she would ever do something like _that_ with Draco Malfoy.

"You are being ridiculous, Granger," Malfoy said, the normal drawl back in his voice now. "Now, will you leave and we can continue what I'm sure will be an enthralling conversation at a later date?"

"I am not leaving," Hermione said firmly, crossing her arms tightly in front of her chest.

"Fine, then come inside. I have neighbours that I'm sure have better things to do than listen to your less than docile tones. " He opened the door wider and stepped aside to allow her entrance.

"I'm not going inside your house, Malfoy."

"Don't, then. I really couldn't care less."

Malfoy turned and shut the door in her face. Taking a deep breath he held his head in his right hand and steadied himself against the wall of the foyer with his left. He did not want to deal with this, not now. Draco massaged his temples, trying to ward off the headache that Hermione was giving him.

He'd known that approaching Granger that night wasn't a good idea. But, honestly, he hadn't anticipated things going so far, and he'd been drunk and in need of something real, something not dark.

He hadn't lied; Hermione had been an eager participant, once she got a few drinks in her. In fact, she had been the one to initiate the entire sequence of events. And Draco, being barely eighteen, had not been one to argue.

When she hadn't said anything the following day, Draco assumed she was angry or had forgotten the whole incident. That was fine with him; he didn't particularly want to remember that he'd had sex with the mudblood either. But, as days turned to weeks which turned to months, he hadn't been able to get Hermione out of his head. He dreamed of her, of that night.

Draco was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of the doorbell. He tried to ignore it, but apparently Hermione was nothing if not stubborn.

"Stupid bloody Gryffindors," he muttered to himself as she pressed the button over and over, the clanging reverberating through his aching head. "Stupid bloody mudblood Gryffindors."

"What?" He demanded, opening the door again and staring at the shorter girl angrily. "If you want to talk, fucking come inside. But we are not having a yelling match on my front walk in the middle of the night. Come in or go the fuck home, Granger."

"Fine," she said, and she pushed past him into the foyer.

Draco sighed and shut the door behind her.

"We need to talk," she said again, turning to face him.

"So you've said," he answered. "But I really don't know what else I could possibly say. I did not take advantage of you. If anything you took advantage of me. You ought to know that I would never sleep with a dirty mudblood like yourself."

"Listen to me, Malfoy," Hermione said in a low voice. "Listen to me, you can say that all you want, you can use all the derogatory terms that you want if it makes you feel better, but that doesn't make what you did right. I may have repressed the memory until now – God knows I'd have had good reason – but that doesn't make it okay."

"No, you listen to me," Draco said, matching Hermione in tone and emotion as he took a step closer to her. "What's not okay is you coming to my private residence in the middle of the night to falsely accuse me of things. I was there. I remember it better than you do, probably. You were impossible to stop. You screamed my name. So don't even pretend you don't remember how it happened. Because you do. And that's why you're so upset now. Because you liked it."

"It shouldn't have ever happened," Hermione said quietly, looking up into Draco's cold, grey eyes. "I shouldn't wake up in the middle of the night shaking because of you, because of what happened _after_ the battle. I have enough to scream about at night without you in my dreams."

"You think I don't feel the same way? Do you think I'm happy with what we did? I can't get that night out of my mind. I have flashbacks of it, Granger. I have flashbacks of something that never existed, or that shouldn't have existed anyway. I want you out. I want you out of my head and, for Merlin's sake, I want you out of my house."

"You're the one who invited me in," Hermione whispered. She was looking at Draco as though she'd never seen him before. She hadn't, not like this at any rate.

"I shouldn't have," he admitted. "But you wouldn't fucking leave. You won't ever fucking leave."

Hermione just looked at him for a couple of minutes, silent for the first time that night. She didn't know what to say. She didn't think there was anything to say.

"What does that mean?" She finally asked, afraid of what the answer might be, of what it might suggest.

"I don't know," he whispered back.

Silence erupted between the two of them once again. Heavy and dark, it seemed to fill the foyer and make breathing difficult. Suddenly Hermione was aware of how close they were, of how the air between them was charged with a mixture of magic and emotion.

"What do you want from me?" He asked, choking the words out. The silence did not want to be broken; it had a mind and plan of its own.

"I don't know," she replied hesitantly. "I just want answers. I want there to be more than whispers in the back of my mind and meaningless images. I want memories that don't shame me to remember. I want things to make sense."

"The thing about life..." Draco started as he closed the space between them as though compelled by some outward force.

And then, his hands were on her waist and hers were on his back and his mouth was moving against hers fervently. Hermione shivered as she pulled him closer and ran her hands through his hair. Draco deepened the kiss, pushing her against the opposite wall and leaning into her. It was desperate and confused and a parody of all that was right.

Draco pulled back, staring into Hermione's eyes with a piercing gaze.

"The thing about life is that it never makes sense."

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[A/N: Thoughts?]


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